Ebola; Perfidy, perfidy!; Portuguese; Dwarves; & The faye.

Ebola and Spain: What can one say? According to unofficial sources, there are 100 cases here being monitored by a health service which is clearly incapable of dealing with the crisis. The prime minister, though, tells us - like his UK counterpart - that Spain's health service is one of the best in the world and that everything is under control. But lying outrageously is the default position of all Spanish politicians and no one believes him. Cue panic, at least in Madrid. A senior politico has defended the state's posture by labelling a liar the (dying?) nurse infected when treating the first Ebola cases. In the face of public outrage, he's now offered to resign but probably won't. Unless, of course, the government sees him as a useful sacrificial lamb. When he'll be tossed off a cliff in Ronda.

Perfidious Brits: My friend, the British spy, has sent me this article on constructive ambiguity - a British speciality, it seems. It helps to explain the current mess in Hong Kong.

Portuguese words: An easy one: Cataplana. This is "an item of cookware used to prepare Portuguese seafood dishes, popular in the country's Algarve region. It's traditionally made of copper and shaped like two clamshells hinged at one end and able to be sealed using a clamp on either side of the assembly." And here's another word, possibly more useful: Panaché: Shandy. This seems to come from the French for this drink. Or, more likely, a French brand which has been hooverised and gone generic.

Finally . . . Dwarves are definitely in the news. In the UK, a waitress gave one a child's colouring book and crayons. And here in Spain, a woman has admitted her baby was the result of a hen night liaison with a (very) vertically challenged stripper. It's a funny old world. So far, there's no news on the divorce.